New challenge leveled at wetlands project

COLUMBIA - A Florida businessman says environmental groups have delayed by at least eight months his plans to convert 700 acres of Jasper County wetlands into a commercial mitigation bank.

The land, which is owned by South Coast Mitigation Group, is located west of U.S. 17 before the Talmadge Bridge over the Back River in the lower Savannah River watershed.

The S.C. Coastal Conservation League, the state Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service have protested the proposal to convert what was for 200 years a freshwater impounded wetland into saltwater wetlands.

A central concern is that by converting freshwater wetlands into salt marsh, the result would be more acreage that's of less value to important aquatic, migratory and endangered species. The project would be located just south of the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge.

The development group's president Murphy McLean said "convert" is the wrong word, and that he is simply "restoring" the land to its much earlier form.

DNR disagreed.

"Conversion of one wetland type to another does not constitute restoration," said the agency in written comments to regulators.

"The proposed mitigation bank would restore, enhance or establish nothing."

The natural resources agency said McLean's development group "arbitrarily and capriciously failed" to justify its project, according to agency materials submitted to regulators. DNR said the project leaders made no "rational connection" between the facts on record and its claims that creating the bank wouldn't jeopardize habitat.

DNR also warned of the release of "significant amount of contaminants," which it said are bound in sediments of the Savannah River. The agency said marsh soils in the estuary are known to have hazardous contaminants, including radioactive pollutants, metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, cyanide, pesticides, and others.

The league, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, challenged a permit the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control's coastal division had granted to McLean in December. The state agency's board rejected the challenge. Last month the league filed a request with the S.C. Administrative Law Court for a contested case hearing.

"We don't know quite what these folks are after," said McLean on Tuesday. "We have all our facts and case together, and we're looking forward to talking to them at the hearing. We've prepared our case, and we're moving forward."

Plans call for 2,300-feet of dike to be removed to release the tide waters and 5,000 cubic yards of fill material would be discharged onto the site.

On Tuesday, no hearing date had been set. A final permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize site activities for McLean's project has also yet to be issued.

South Coast Mitigation Group aims to sell credits from the bank to private developers or government entities, such as the State Ports Authority, the Department of Transportation or the U.S. Marine Corps installation on Parris Island, from Beaufort to Georgetown. When they destroy wetlands in the course of expanding a runway, port, highway or other development, they must offset the destruction by purchasing credits from a bank.

"A lot of projects are held up on the coast because they have no saltwater credits," said McLean.